


The Semantics of Chance Encounters

by eve11



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, Humor, Randomness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-18
Updated: 2014-02-18
Packaged: 2018-01-12 23:20:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1204276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eve11/pseuds/eve11
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been a haphazard kind of day</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Semantics of Chance Encounters

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the one-shot prompt "Random" on the LJ community who_contest

From all of the legends and history of the Delta quadrant, there is nothing more dour than the dungeons of Calabad during the years of strife. Oh reader, the stories that could be told, If the walls could talk in that place. . . . 

Well, to be fair, if the walls could talk they would have alerted the Calabad regime to the fact that years of sub-standard plumbing work in their inset pipes were causing leaks that were slowly but surely crumbling away their concrete from the inside out, and that that oversight, unsighted over several decades, would in fact cause enough deterioration to facilitate the mass escape and revolt that would liberate the prison and eventually bring down the entire regime in favor of a duly-elected representative parliament. But honestly, that was still decades off, and who would ever think to build walls that could talk?

If the walls had ears, on the other hand, they would likely have been trying to cover them up to drown out the sound of the latest two prisoners being escorted to the cells by several very grim and business-like guards, who were also doing their best to ignore the shouting. 

So it passed that two figures, mid-row, were shoved not so gently through a cell door. Which in turn clanged shut, locking the Doctor and Clara into a tiny, bare room whose purple walls (for purple was a dire color on Calabad) were mottled with polka dots of pink rust from the aforementioned leaky pipes, to the effect that their surroundings now exactly matched the shade and pattern of her bouncy box-pleated dress--and, though she was unaware of this fact, also matched his bespoke boxer-style undergarments purchased last week at the Pangaria market. To be fair, the Doctor had noticed _that_ coincidence when he had picked her up for their Wednesday adventure, and had proven himself a true student of the universe capable of learning from worldly experience by deciding not to mention it.

They had long since abandoned decorum, though, and were too involved in shouting to notice their surroundings. Clara stormed across the cell and flung herself onto the room's only piece of furniture, a rickety wooden bench that due to favoring the peculiar combination of legs and tails in Calabadian anatomy, was shaped not entirely unlike a large bow tie. It was also colored bright red, but that was Calabadian wood for you. Oxidized like the devil, and that was why any regime worth their salt wouldn't be caught up in a coup for using it to make sub-standard pipes, either.

"--four planets in a row! And I don't care what you say, if your moody, recalcitrant, haphazard time ship would have told you where we landed--!"

"The TARDIS is _not_!" He turned, paused and pointed a finger at her, too affronted to even speak the next word; in fact it took several attempts, two lengths of cell pacing and three more gratuitous finger points before he managed to repeat it, working his jaw around the offending syllables. "Hap. Hazard."

Clara harrumphed in incredulous frustration and was about to start yelling again when she noticed something in his stance, and realized that despite all their show and bravado, her words had actually stung him. She got as far as a surprised "Oh!" and then opted for a curious scowl to see what he would say next.

The Doctor collected himself. "I'll have you know that she is well and truly, calibrated and certified: Random!"

Clara's curious scowl deepened to an actual scowl. "You what? There's no difference between haphazard and random!"

"Haphazard!" he exclaimed, digging in his pockets for the sonic before realizing that the door was wood anyway. "Haphazard implies whim, bias, methods unrepeatable, unknowable and unrecognizable! Now, the TARDIS, she has the best random generators this side of Logopolis. Reliably unpredictable! And don't tell me there's no difference. She once landed me on Ketelsia Prime seventeen times in a row for no discernible reason. Do you know the feat of engineering that takes?" 

"I don't know," said Clara, still scowling. "Are you sure she wasn't telling you you'd left a sock behind or something?"

He scowled back, and then brandished a paper bag from his pocket instead of the screwdriver. "It's like this. I could pick through all of the green jelly babies in this bag _haphazardly_ and hand you the remainder, and if you had no idea green jelly babies existed you'd be none the wiser! Whereas If I selected them truly randomly, you would know the distribution of the colors I gave you was representative of jelly babies as a whole--"

Clara stood up and snatched the bag, dumping a few out onto her hand. Which she proceeded to examine, and then throw at him. "You said they didn't make the green ones in the future!"

" _You_ said--" He ducked out of the way of the gummy projectiles, which hit the cell door hard enough to stick to it, "that you didn't like green ones anyway!"

She threw her hands down. "Sour grapes and all that! I lied! But you--"

"Hello!" he waved. "Rule number one? But when I say random, I mean--"

"Obstinate, incorrigible space snog box!" Clara shouted. "Four planets! In a row!"

"Well, she can't be held responsible for prevailing linguistic trends!"

Clara closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Four planets where the first thing we discover is that the phrase 'Hello, I'm Clara' means anything from 'I've got a highly virulent incurable disease' to 'I'm planning to violently overthrow the government'. That is no one's definition of random, you _haphazard_ space man!"

They reached a sudden impasse; thusly, there was a brief moment of silence. And fizzing. 

They turned toward the front of the cell. The Doctor raised an eyebrow, and took Clara by the hand. 

"And one planet where gelatin suspended sucrose dissolves wood," he said, kicking down the door.

When the guards returned they were greeted only by an empty cell and four silent, slowly seeping walls.


End file.
